The Quadrilateral: a plea for help
Friday, September 12, 2008
I'm currently working on a project that involves the Wesleyan Quadrilateral, and I need your help.
Not long ago, Kevin Watson pointed me to a post on his blog where he takes Mainstream United Methodists, an Oklahoma caucus group, to task for misrepresenting the Quadrilateral in one of their newsletters earlier this year. The newsletter makes such outlandish statements as "Wesley's Quadrilateral is the center piece of United Methodism." My response to that would be "Wesley had a Quadrilateral? Huh. Never knew that. Where does he talk about it?"
Part of my project looks at the way the concept of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral is used popularly in the UMC. I've tracked down some references in blogs, letters to the editor, and news articles, but it occurred to me that readers of this blog might have come across references of their own.
Do you know of sources - stories, letters, blogs, etc. - where the Quadrilateral is described? If so, can you point me to them?
Feel free to post here or e-mail me at the address in my 'Contact' page.
Thanks.
Not long ago, Kevin Watson pointed me to a post on his blog where he takes Mainstream United Methodists, an Oklahoma caucus group, to task for misrepresenting the Quadrilateral in one of their newsletters earlier this year. The newsletter makes such outlandish statements as "Wesley's Quadrilateral is the center piece of United Methodism." My response to that would be "Wesley had a Quadrilateral? Huh. Never knew that. Where does he talk about it?"
Part of my project looks at the way the concept of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral is used popularly in the UMC. I've tracked down some references in blogs, letters to the editor, and news articles, but it occurred to me that readers of this blog might have come across references of their own.
Do you know of sources - stories, letters, blogs, etc. - where the Quadrilateral is described? If so, can you point me to them?
Feel free to post here or e-mail me at the address in my 'Contact' page.
Thanks.
Labels: Wesleyan Quadrilateral
posted by Andrew C. Thompson at 10:14 AM
13 Comments:
Andrew:
I believe that Ted Campbell has written some things on the Quadrilateral over the years.
I personally identify with those who say that the Wesley Qudrilateral is neither Wesleyan nor a quadrilateral.
andrew,
your own (or duke's own) w. stephen gunter edited a book called "wesley and the quadrilateral: renewing the conversation." it's a great book, and not a very long read - at least for a future DOCTOR OF THEOLOGY. if duke doesn't have it (which i can't imagine) lemme know, and i'll ship you mine.
Thanks for both those suggestions. I have a pretty good sense of where the academic discussion on the Quadrilateral has taken place - which includes both Campbell's article and the volume that Gunter edited. It's actually popular-level writing that I am interested in at this point. That is, I want to see how the Quadrilateral is being used to defend certain conceptions of Wesleyan theology, Methodist doctrine, or even specific moral opinions, by pastors and laity around the church.
Hey, I did a quick Google search on "Methodist resolutions quadrilateral" and found the quadrilateral having influenced the drafting of Resolutions against corporal punishment:
http://www.stophitting.com/religion/unitedmethodist.php
Quadrilaterals are so common that you can see them almost anywhere; I think that's part of what makes the metaphor so useful. I don't think most people (at least us lay folks) use the term all that much. However, it tends to be used descriptively - that is, when people observe us, that's what they see. In the UMC, people talk about Experiencing God, and naturally we want the sermon to be clear and reasonable, and of course we have our Wednesday night Bible studies, and we show our respect for tradition in the way we keep the sacraments but also simple things like the order of worship.
For most of us, I think, it's less a theological truism than it is simply a description of practice.
I have only experienced it when clergy write letters to the editor in our conference's local biweekly. Usually to out-Methodist each other and prove their point against all others. I'll try to get links.
Cynthia
Cynthia, that's a great way to put it. "Out-Methodisting" one another tends to be the way I see it used popularly as well. Another way it is used is in trying to "Out-Wesley" others, which I take to be somewhat different. The MUM newsletter I cite in my blog post is a good example of that. It refers to "Wesley's Quadrilateral," as if Wesley used the term Quadrilateral in the way that we do - to refer to a four-part theological construct consisting of Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. Of course, he did not such thing.
Don Thorsen writes a book on the issue. I am pretty sure it is merely called "The Wesleyan Quadrilateral." The term was coined by Outler, who supposedly said later in life that he wished (because it was misunderstood, misinterpreted, and misapplied by so man) that he never coined the phrase. Regardless, he wrote himself into Methodist history by coining it and has shaped a lot of trajectory in Methodist theological method. I personally think the naming of the sources is helpful in illuminating what types of things Wesley used in developing his theology. I tend to think that the actual sources are Scripture and Tradition and that tradition (note: little "t"), reason and experience are how to to interact with/understand those sources. I am not saying this was Wesley's method, but a suggestion as to how it might work.
"missapplied by so many..." not "misspapplied by so man..." Sorry.
On a different note, I wanna read this paper when completed.
Your next project: a theological examination of the "Open Hearts, etc." campaign.
Jeff - Yes, I've got Thorsen's book. It is a revision of his dissertation. One thing that this blog post has made me think about is offering a bibliography of sources related to the Quadrilateral, for anyone who is interested in reading more about it. That will be fairly easy when I finish my paper, as I can just use the bibliography from that.
Casey - I'd be happy to send you a copy. As to the anti-Wesleyan, non-theological 'Open Heart' slogan, all my work is designed to help steer the church away from such silliness. FYI, I mention it in my current UM Reporter column on Sabbath-keeping, which I will be blogging about later today.
Peace,
AT
I know Dr. William Abraham at Perkins has spent some time criticizing the 'Wesleyan quadrilateral'. I think the name itself is problematic since it isn't exactly a quadrilateral (as it is described in the Discipline, some elements seem to have more weight or authority than others). I usually try to call it 'the four-fold way of theology.' Which is not nearly as succinct. And, with reference to the name, there is the question in what sense it is "wesleyan."
I mention it in only one post that I can find, but I am ascribing it to the UMC, and not to Wesley per se:
http://gloria-deo.blogspot.com/2007/07/john-wesleys-address-to-clergy.html
Just one more note on the quadrilateral: if you carefully read the Discipline's description, you will note that both reason and experience have individual and corporate elements. It seems to me that corporate reason is another name for tradition; and corporate experience is also another name for tradition. If this is so, then we are talking about maybe an upside down pyramid with Scripture on top being the most weighty and then Tradition being more weighty than the others...
What do ya'll think about that?
Andrew,
Last year I preached a sermon series on "You Might Be United Methodist If . . " I explained the WQ to my congregation in one of the messages. Unfortunately, my church wasn't yet podcasting the sermons when I did that, so there is no link to it.
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